2010 is supposed to be the year that 3D breaks into mainstream home entertainment but most of the PR puff has been focused on expensive TV sets. Acer does a good job of making this currently tiny market a damned sight more interesting with its H5360, a sub-£600 '3D Ready' digital projector.
Acer H5360 3D ready? Acer's H5360 …

COMMENTS

dvi

DVI is indeed an omission, especially if it has VGA. However, I recently priced a few motherboards with integrated video, which had HDMI built in. I think HDMI is the way of future (though VGA is a bit oldschool, but they do insist on putting it on netbooks instead of miniDP :) )

Just bought a couple of new PC's

Both Acers I think, both came with HDMI out, not DVI. (also came with VGA out)

HDMI is the way to go (and I believe supports a greater variety of resolutions than DVI). And if you want DVI, a very simple converter is easy enough to find (DVI +audio = HDMI), as the reviewer found out. Although they seem to have overpaid!

Overpaid

What is 3D- ready?

Im confused between the difference between an HD projector and a '3D-ready' projector. Isnt the 3D handled by the graphics card? If I have an NVIDIA GTS 250, which supports 3D, then why do I need a special projector if I am just doing DVI/HDMI?

Yes, but it's Acer

It's an Acer,..!!! so it's bound to go wrong, no-one will respond to your support requests, and there will be some vitally important peice of info missing from the sales pitch/manual/packaging like "it only works on Tuesdays between the hours of 2 and 4 AM"

It's not even 1080p, and it's NOT 3D ready.

And to state the obvious once again in case anyone missed it - IT@S AN ACER !!!!!!!

White Projector

White projector...

You're not supposed to be looking at the projector anyway, you're supposed to be looking the other way. Also, a projector is usually mounted on the ceiling, behind your seating location, so the white is usually to help it blend in with the ceiling a little more in non-dedicated cinema rooms (and let's face it, if you've got a dedicated cinema room, chances are you're not buying a £500, 720p projector!)....

My HD20 is currently, temporarily, set up on a small bedside table, sat about a foot from the side of my bed, and I don't find it at all distracting when I'm watching something.

Answers

Panasonic ftw

Even at avforums this projector has been the one to beat in the sub $1000 market for several years now and is hands down the imho the best projector at the price point for HD gaming. The only negative is the $350 lamp having to be replaced every 2500 hours or so but tis the price you pay.

3D Ready?

I realise that there's a global slowdown on sales, but display manufacturers that think that re-releasing old technology with a slightly sharper frame rate, putting the letters '3D' on the box and bumping the price up again is enough to part people from their cash have a long way to go.

I won't be buying home 3D with shutter glasses. They're fine for sitting in front of a PC, but for home film viewing it has to be the cheap and semi-disposable polarised glasses or nowt. That means investing in some actual polarised display technology (props to LG, at least), and if someone can't even manage to do that for a projector then that's a big fael.

Now as a home projector on its own, this sounds pretty good. But by trying to make out it's something it's not is just going to make people put their purchasing off until a product comes along that is 3D capable.

Picture quality?

More than 1080

2048x1536, on a 10 or 12 year old 19" CRT at 60hz. Most times though I'll stick with 1600x1200 or 1280x1024@75-100hz though. The novelty of icons that require a microscope to see wears really thin after a while.

+10% huh?

Acer = Fail

A real gaming PC should be custom built, not pre-packed with a huge mark-up. Plus my "cheap" sub £300 GFX card has HDMI out and also came with so many converters I could have gone into business. The fact ACER appear to have installed the bits and not supplied any extras for what is presumably a very expensive PC is clear proof of their crapness.

3D imagery using cheap glasses.

We use it regularly for teaching purposes here at UCL, and did an amazing 3D fly-through movie of Mars for the Royal Society a few years back, complete with War of the Worlds style scaffolding mounting the projectors.

Yes, needs 2 DLP projectors, but for thirty or so studnets the cost savings in the cheaper glasses is immediate.

Sizing?

Looks a pretty decent piece of kit for the money. I could be tempted to replace my tv with one of these & free up some space - however while the review says it's used 1-5m range normally, I'd be interested to know what the maxiumum picture size is at 1m or 2m.

Also, er, are 3d grumbleflicks about yet, and has anyone got a friend who's seen one & has commented on the format?

Not for me:

Note to "3D" display manufacturers - some of us have to wear glasses most of the time anyway, especially to watch movies. I am myopic (short-sighted) and pretty much all of these "3D glasses", from the cardboard bi-colour to polarisers to shutters, assume your eyes are already lenses-free. Bottom line, they don't fit me.

I wonder when ...

... opticians will start to offer a 3D extra pair? It should be easy if we can come up with a standard for left / right polarisation. Surely this would be the ideal way for us speccy types to watch 3D? I'd much rather wear my own glasses to the iMax than wear their bulky, scratched and smudgy ones over the top of my designer^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspecsaver specs.